The present invention relates to the automation of painting a textured painting and more specifically to the automation of painting Matrix paintings.
Background: Matrix Paintings
Christian Seidler, an artist living in Jefferson, Tex., has developed a painting technique referred to as Matricism. While this document does not need to provide a complete description of the technique, certain aspects are essential to understanding the invention described herein. We will refer to paintings in the Matricism style as Matrix paintings.
A Matrix painting starts with a grayscale underpainting, such as the one shown in FIG. 1. The artist then defines geometric shapes that overlay the underpainting. These geometric shapes are often lines but are not restricted to lines. For the purposes of this discussion we will initially restrict the discussion to lines, and will later generalize to arbitrary geometric shapes. FIG. 2 is an example of an underpainting in which the lines have been drawn over the underpainting. The lines are shown in color to clearly distinguish the lines from the grayscale underpainting.
In a Matrix painting the artist selects a number of principal colors to work with. This could be a single principal color or as many as the artist desires. In our example, we will assume that the artist has selected 3 principal colors, red, blue, and yellow. While we have selected for this example simple colors, there is no restriction on what the artist selects as principal colors; they could be aqua-marine, burnt-orange, and raspberry rather than our simpler selection of red, blue, and yellow. Each of these principal colors will be associated with specific lines that the artist has drawn.
Let us first deal with the principal color red and its associated lines. Paints are prepared in a range of intensities of red. The artist decides on the number of intensities to be used for the painting, for the purposes of this example we will assume that 15 different intensities have been selected. Let us also assign intensity number 8 to be the original red color selected. Intensity number 7 will be a slightly lighter red than number 8. Number 6 will be lighter still and so on until we get to intensity number 1 which will be white or almost white with just a bit of red. Similarly, intensity number 9 will be a slightly darker red than number 8 and number 10 will be darker still until we get to intensity number 15 which is black or very nearly black with a hint of red. The range and step size between each color intensity is a choice made by the artist. A similar process of selecting a range of intensities of colors for each of the principal colors is also carried out. FIG. 4 shows an example of 15 different intensities of the colors red and blue. Although the choices for the chosen color yellow are not shown, a similar range of yellow would be selected.
For each line associated with the principal color (red in this case) that the artist has selected, the artist selects a size and spacing of dots that will be painted along that line. The artist has freedom to decide what the distribution of sizes and spacing of the dots along the line. They could be all of the same size and spacing along a particular line, or the size and spacing could vary along the line as the artist wishes.
The color paint to be used to paint the dot (intensity 1-15 of red) is selected by the grayscale level of the underpainting at the location of the dot. For example, if the underpainting was at its lightest at the location of a specific dot, then red intensity 15 would be used. If another dot was just slightly darker it would be painted with red intensity 14. If another dot was in a location where the underpainting was in the middle of its range of grayscales it would use red intensity 8. If still another dot was in a location where the underpainting was at it darkest then red intensity 1 would be used for that dot.
For each line associated with the principal color red, the artist selects the size (or sizes) of dots and their distribution along that line and then uses the grayscale of the underpainting to select the intensity level of that color to be used for that dot. The artist may also wish to create a particular shape or texture for each dot of paint.
The artist repeats this process for each line associated with each principal color he has selected. Although it is not requirement, the selection of dot sizes and distributions is such that most if not all of the underpainting is covered with colored dots. It is also usual to select the dot sizes so that they are small enough to sample the important features of the underpainting. The finished painting reveals the image of the underpainting and, at the same time, the structure defined by the lines. FIG. 3 shows a completed exemplary Matrix painting, this one from a different underpainting than is shown in FIGS. 1 and 2.
We can now consider other geometric shapes besides lines to be defined over the underpainting. Two dimensional structures of arbitrary shape may also be defined over the underpainting. The artist also associates a principal color to be associated with each defined geometry. In this case the artist selects a two dimensional distribution of dots and dot sizes. The assignment of color intensity based on the graylevel of the underpainting remains the same.
Mr. Seidler has created a market for paintings in this style. Virtually all of the paintings he has produced in the past 11 years have been sold for several thousand dollars each. The difficulty is that the creation of Matrix paintings is extremely labor intensive and physically demanding, and he had all but abandoned this art form.
Matrix Painting Design and Coding
The inventors have appreciated the fact that the tedious and labor intensive aspects of the process of producing a Matrix painting could be automated. Matrix paintings are particularly suited to automation, principally because the image of the painting may be described accurately as a series of dots at specific locations each with a specific color, size, and shape or texture.
The instant application discloses the method of designing and coding a Matrix painting, while related patent application xe2x80x9cMechanism for Applying Paint to Canvasxe2x80x9d (filed simultaneously with the instant application Ser. No. 09/838,549) describes an automated physical mechanism for depositing and redistributing paint on a canvas to make a painting.
The disclosed innovations, in various embodiments, provide one or more of at least the following advantages:
operation is less time consuming;
speed of producing a Matrix painting is greatly reduced;
process is less physically demanding on the artist.